I love cotton and lace. I have not always been this way about lace because I never liked "foofy" things. My mother loved lace and had lace curtains and lace tablecloths and such. Over time I started changing and looked at lace differently, I like simple lace with a casual and pretty touch. There is a difference.
I started understanding my mothers appreciation for lace.
I have always been fond of cotton. It just feels right on my body and I like cotton curtains, sheets and tablecloths. Maybe this comes from living in the deep south.
I did not always know what I liked, I just accepted things, did not pay attention as much as I have since I got older. I wish I had paid more attention when I was younger but we all go through life adjusting and changing as we go. Well most of us do that is.
Now I have a special appreciation for houses with front porches. In the past people would sit out on their front porch to stay cool or shell peas or just sit and relax in a rocking chair.
I am not sure why it takes some of us so long to figure out what it is that we really like, what it is that we really want to do.
And a thought came to me today that in the past we did not have the choices we have now and that was a good thing. I feel we have too many choices and too many distractions for us to live a focused life. No wonder people do not know what it is they want.
We have to look back to know where we have come from and how we have changed.
When we live a normal life, plus an electronic life then we start living a rushed life because we are always behind because of the distractions that cause much loss of time.
I keep feeling people will get to a tipping point and people will say, "Wait a minute, there has to be something better than this.
I am very happy and relieved that Charles and I changed tracks and turned our life around to start living a more simple life. I cannot tell you how much it helped us.
We enjoy living without all the hectic things of today and all we did was literally got rid of the modern distractions. We simply disconnected.
I went back to cotton and lace, Charles went back to hand tools and old books. We both went back to less noise in the house and rid our home of items that were not around when we were young. Our exception is this computer that I am typing on to use for my blog and a few things of today that we use on a limited basis.
I just want everyone to know that just because things are being invented and manufactured and sold we do not have to buy it. It does not hurt us at all to not have it because we did not have it before and life was very good without it.
The most important part of life is good nutrition so we can have good health. A place to sleep well at night and at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep. People are getting more unhealthy today and it is going to get worse if we do not take a good look at what is causing it.
Charles and I changed our home, so it was time to change our diet. We went through a lot of changes with food while we were moving back in time to live more like the past but recently we have completely changed our diet.
I had a long talk with a family member that is in her 80s a few months ago and we talked about food in the past. She told me that they ate vegetables mostly. They did not eat meat every day and a cake or pie was for a special occasion. Their father would bring them some cheese occasionally for a special treat. This made me take a serious look at our food.
Charles and I have attended too many funerals of loved ones that have died due to cancer. We had to look into how we can change our home environment and diet.
Charles has psoriasis and that is not curable and can be quite problematic at times. So we have started eating mostly vegetables and fruit and only a few grains. We eat meat only a few times a week. We have stopped eating the foods that we suspect causes inflammation in our body.
We have eliminated many foods temporarily such as dairy, gluten, sugar, anything from the nightshade family such as tomatoes, peppers, potatoes etc. Sweet potatoes is not part of the night shade vegetables so we can have those. We are not eating lentils, nuts, chocolate or eggs, no coffee or tea. We use very little oil and only olive oil. We started off not eating the eliminated foods for three weeks and adding back one food per week and watching for reaction such as skin changes, bloating or body aches etc. We also gave up sodas several years ago permanently.
We eat oatmeal with cooked apples in the morning. I do use a small amount of pure maple syrup in our cooked apples. One tablespoon per apple. also a dash of cinnamon.
We are eating organic brown rice, and vegetables and such as this.
When we eat a meatless meal we will cook something like mushrooms and onions in place of the meat.
We have been blending fruit and coconut milk to drink which curbs our wanting sweets.
Charles and I have lost weight while eating like this and Charles skin has become less inflamed which we are happy about. Charles and I had been accumulating extra weight before we started living more like the past. At this time Charles has lost 45 pounds and feels much better with that weight off. I have lost 12 pounds.
We are having to learn to cook better, it has not come easy and I have not posted any recipes and such with this new way we eat because we are still figuring it out.
We will both talk with our doctors when we go for our next check up and let them know what we are doing. Charles last check up the doctor was very surprised at the reduction in his cholesterol without medication. He told him to keep doing what he was doing. :)
With all the changes we have done, changing the way we cook has been the most difficult because we cooked differently for so many years. It seems to me our cooking went the wrong way starting about the end of the 1980s. Food is so processed now and has changed so much that we really need to be careful what we bring home from the store.
Tonight we are eating collard greens, sweet potato and wild rice. We season our food with minimal salt, pepper and fresh garlic. We save the juice from our vegetables to pour over the rice. We drink water or make fresh mint tea for our liquids.
Changing how we cook and giving up things we like to eat is not easy but when it comes to health it is important.
I hope this post helps in some way. Grandma Donna
